The results might be the same, but the timeline would be different. Some of those pics are 3-4 years apart. It would take 20 years of heavy drinking to accomplish that level of aging.

I've been lucky that my heavy drinking hasn't aged me (family has good skin, I guess). But it's time to stop. A man can only drink a 10 cocktails a day for so long before his liver stops returning his phone calls.

The problem is that once the body becomes dependent, I can either die, literally, or be in a world of hurt trying to detox on my own. So as of the 26th, I'm checking in to inpatient care. My only hope is that they have wi-fi so I can still annoy all ya'll.

But holy fark - at least I'm not hooked on meth. I've watched several alcoholics ruin their lives, but none were anything like the methheads I've known.

relcec:and alcoholics spend 20 years f*cking up everything they came in contact with.good luck.

That's what I'm trying to avoid. I can already see it coming down the pike. Either I quit now, or resign myself to a life of bullsh*t. As it stands, my reputation and income are solid. I want to keep it this way.

I don't want to be forced by "rock bottom." There's too much in this world to live for.

cryinoutloud:dickfreckle: The problem is that once the body becomes dependent, I can either die, literally, or be in a world of hurt trying to detox on my own. So as of the 26th, I'm checking in to inpatient care. My only hope is that they have wi-fi so I can still annoy all ya'll.

Good luck to you. Hey, are you sober in the morning when you wake up? Stay sober most of the day, or at least until 2 pm or so? You're detoxed. if you're talking about the other dependency, the one that makes you start drinking every day, that's the harder one.....

/I didn't go to rehab because I needed to be detoxed. I went to rehab because I couldn't sober up long enough to check in.

Being sober in the morning depends on my day's schedule (currently work mostly for myself). But no matter what, I require at least one drink/beer in order to feel above ground. I ride a motorcycle, so I can't get too tanked in the daytime. Thankfully, I live in a walking city so I can just park her at night and get in trouble on my own two feet.

Sadly, the "one drink: I need to feel alive is morphing into two, three, or even more. That's how I know it's time to quit.

My biggest fear is that because I've a party guy for so long, I'll have no idea what to do with myself once totally sober. But I'm also not big on liver disease. The last time I was hospitalized (non-drinking incident) he told me that my enzymes were out of whack. That was several years ago. At present, I'm healthy, or at least appear to be. And I want it to stay that way.

The results might be the same, but the timeline would be different. Some of those pics are 3-4 years apart. It would take 20 years of heavy drinking to accomplish that level of aging.

I've been lucky that my heavy drinking hasn't aged me (family has good skin, I guess). But it's time to stop. A man can only drink a 10 cocktails a day for so long before his liver stops returning his phone calls.

The problem is that once the body becomes dependent, I can either die, literally, or be in a world of hurt trying to detox on my own. So as of the 26th, I'm checking in to inpatient care. My only hope is that they have wi-fi so I can still annoy all ya'll.

But holy fark - at least I'm not hooked on meth. I've watched several alcoholics ruin their lives, but none were anything like the methheads I've known.

drinking is much harder to quit than meth in many ways though.you don't die from going cold turkey on meth. which may mean the physiological addiction is stronger with alcohol. people die everyday from quitting drinking or quitting benzos. also you aren't tempted with meth rocks in everyday situations like you are with meth. in some ways it is almost a societal norm to relieve stress with alcohol consumption.

and a lot of the physical problems from meth are simple behavioral issues caused by the drug addiction, not the drug itself.I've seen meth users crater and then kick it so quick they didn't have time to destroy their body or life, and alcoholics spend 20 years f*cking up everything they came in contact with.good luck.

phedex : Jesus christ. I was expecting that same old faces of meth, but these are all ones i've never seen. The young people make me pretty sad. Just wasted lives.

Yes, show this shiat to 10 year olds.

OR just have them spend a couple nightshifts with me at my backup #2 job. Put the behaviors with the attitudes at 3am when the booze wears off and they need a sugar fix to go with the meth. I never used to think that even recreational use of meth would so completely wreck one's looks, not to mention fry their brain in 5 years or less. This slide show is what I see daily. Honestly if this thread stays around thru the weekend, I'll put up my own faces of meth. It's goddam scary. And I see these people around town bumming for change which is irritating as a lot of them are on public assistance and between the cash and food sides of their aid, they pull in $700-1100 a month, which usually goes to alcohol, smokes and lottery tickets. How do I know? I run the EBT card batches and the machines print their balances on the reports.

More sad? I see women I knew (or used to) that are a good 8-10 years younger than me (I'm 42) that look my mother's age. I"ve seen their IDs when they were smoking hot just a few years back. Now? Goddamn brides of Frankenstein.

If they only gave up the meth and booze for weed, so much of their life (or what's left) could be saved.

dickfreckle:The problem is that once the body becomes dependent, I can either die, literally, or be in a world of hurt trying to detox on my own. So as of the 26th, I'm checking in to inpatient care. My only hope is that they have wi-fi so I can still annoy all ya'll.

Good luck to you. Hey, are you sober in the morning when you wake up? Stay sober most of the day, or at least until 2 pm or so? You're detoxed. if you're talking about the other dependency, the one that makes you start drinking every day, that's the harder one.....

/I didn't go to rehab because I needed to be detoxed. I went to rehab because I couldn't sober up long enough to check in.

dickfreckle:Being sober in the morning depends on my day's schedule (currently work mostly for myself). But no matter what, I require at least one drink/beer in order to feel above ground. I ride a motorcycle, so I can't get too tanked in the daytime. Thankfully, I live in a walking city so I can just park her at night and get in trouble on my own two feet.Sadly, the "one drink: I need to feel alive is morphing into two, three, or even more. That's how I know it's time to quit.

I guess I didn't want you to think that you needed IVs in your arm to detox--if all drunks needed detox, half of Fark would be in convulsions when the liquor store closed. Not that a heavy dose of vitamins and liquids is bad for you when you're trying to sober up, but you have to be pretty far gone to really need detoxing. I went through heroic, Fark-headline worthy BACs, and I never needed detox.

But if you're maintenance drinking, yeah, that's a bad sign. We used to call it "drinking to feel normal." Once you've gone there, it's a long way back. I don't how rehabs are these days, but used to be you weren't allowed to communicate with the outside world much when you got there, and it loosened up some later. You were supposed to be working on yourself, not worrying about the outside world or what others thought of you being in rehab. You just sit around and talk about your life endlessly, how you got to such a place, and how you can fix it. And despite all warnings, a good percentage of the people there will try to hook up with someone, to make their journey less painful. Don't do that. It is a bad idea.

And seriously--good luck. It takes a long time, don't expect to be fixed in 30 days. I'll be looking for your purple posts again. (Purple is good.)

The earliest recipe I am aware of for meth was publuished in a chemistry text in 1874 and calls for anthracite coal, clear ammonia, an obscure brand of laundry bluing and many other common chemicals, easily obtained back then.

I do not know if it would work but it seems to have all the needed chemicals. When the chemist in Japan synthesized it in 1917, he was essentially following this formula.

From that time until WWII, meth was legal and you could be an addict for about 5 cents a day, Yet no one used it, wonder why. Japan handed it out liberally to its soldiers (the Rape of Nanking was probably so sadistic because so many soldiers were on it at the time), and in Germany they mixed it in candy called Panzer=shokolad or Luftwaffe=shokolad. Allied troops used it liberally as well.

I have to wonder why, if something can be manufactured for 5 cents and sold for $120, why we can't see the connection between skyrocketing profits and skyrocketing use.

WhippingBoy:hdhale: DirkTheDaring: Most of them look like they just walked off the set of The Walking Dead

Mainly because they are walking dead?

/don't do Meth...sure joke if you want, but don't do it even once...no need for further snark or "you just don't understand..."

Don't tell me how to live my life! My body, my choice!

It would be much easier and cheaper if you went to your garage, made sure the garage door was shut nice and tight, then started the car and put on some Mozart and waited. Your family would also be put through much less pain and suffering watching you turn into a monster that steals from them for more Meth while your bodily functions slowly short circuit.

This and the school shooting thread are killing me today./but to you, dickfreckle, all the best blessings/good thoughts/positive energies going out to you as you move ahead. Best decision ever you made.//child of lifelong alcoholic so anyone who does the right thing makes me feel all the good feelings

When I was a kid I used to watch a TV special called "Cartoon All Stars To The Rescue". It's from about 1990, and starred characters from like a dozen popular cartoon franchises. Muppet Babies, Garfield, TMNT, the Smurfs, etc.

But it was also a preachy anti-drug PSA in which the characters basically torment a guy because he smokes pot and is thinking of moving on to harder stuff. I mostly watched it because it was cool to see so many characters, and because my local video store let you borrow PSAs for free.

At one point they show the guy looking like a literal zombie in a funhouse mirror, and tell him that's what will happen if he keeps using drugs. Even as a kid I knew to call BS on this, it was quite obviously a case of the "scare 'em straight even if you have to lie" tactics that were popular at the time.

But every time I see one of these Before/After meth galleries, all I can think is "Holy shiat! Slimer and Papa Smurf were right! They totally saw meth coming!"